


Brandy

by whereismygarden



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-22
Updated: 2013-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-15 18:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/852495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midsummer Night: Belle and Rumpelstiltskin bond over a meal and a drink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brandy

                “It’s Midsummer,” Belle says, and proudly indicates the spread she’s produced: too much for the two of them. Rumpelstiltskin sits down anyway, blinking at the amount of care she put into it, when it is just the two of them here.

                “What of it?” he asks, though he knows. Knows better than she does, coming from a farming village, in days when the old gods were a little younger. He made his share of twisted grass totems, tossed them onto bonfires for luck and rain and fertile earth. He jumped over the flames, when he could still jump, hand in hand with Milah, and had his neighbors hand him mugs of ale and Milah would smile.

                “We should have a feast,” Belle says, her smile undimmed, and pushes a bowl full of soup towards his place.

                The camaraderie ended for him, after he came back for the war, but he watched Milah take Bae, watched his son try and twist the long strands of sedge into an offering. The feasting stopped after Milah left, when the war resumed, and the prayers to the gods cracked cries for mercy and peace and escape.

                He sips at the soup, anyway, and it’s good, potato and leeks in a simple brew. Not something that would have been out of place on their table, long ago. Belle offers him a piece of bread, and it’s sweet, fluffy: some dish from her sunny seaside land, nothing he recognizes.

                He wants to be sour, but she plies him with everything she’s made, and he at least tries it all, for her sake. She’s not broken yet, not by the complete unmercy of any gods that might exist, nor by the harsh hands of human beings. For a girl who could scarcely manage to bake bread that rose when she arrived, she’s done a magnificent job, and he tries the blackberry tart, grinning at her. She shrieks, feigning horror at the sight of his teeth doused in purple juice, and throws him a napkin.

                She takes all the food away, after she sees he won’t eat anymore, and returns with two cups and a bottle of dark brandy.

                “Your feast was lovely,” he says, and she smiles, pouring the brandy and handing him a cup.

                “I never got to do much on Midsummer,” she tells him, sipping at the drink. “When I was a little girl, I wasn’t allowed to dance by the fires for danger, and by the time I was old enough, well, I was a young maiden, no dancing with men, lest I end up in a haystack with one of them.” He snorts, sipping the brandy—plum, sweet and tart and rich—and wonders if the drink loosened her tongue. Belle is usually proper, for all that she is nineteen or twenty and he vaguely remembers being that age. Propriety never was too important. Then again, she’s highborn, told that maidenhood is important and lineage _matters_ , though it doesn’t. Kings raise peasant boys and blacksmiths, princesses, more often than even stories guessed.

                “Dancing is overrated,” he tells her, waggling his fingers, but takes her hand in one of his and the cup and brandy in the other, pulling her outside. “But I can make you a fire.” A snap of his fingers, and a bonfire blazes, lonely amongst the trees of his castle’s forlorn, mostly-neglected garden. Belle grips his arm in shock and delight, mouth curling into a smile, and she hugs him, hard. There’s an odd, pleased fluttering in his chest, a sensation lost for centuries, until he remembers that once he had liked to make others happy, without taking a price beyond his enjoyment of their joy.

                Belle stands and looks at the fire, biting her lip, and pours more brandy for both of them.

                “I’d feel silly dancing by myself,” she confesses, and sits down in the grass, heedless of the evening dew, clapping her hands together and against her legs, setting a rhythm. She occasionally sips from her cup, and he realizes she’s getting quite drunk.

                She sings, a song that’s slow and old-sounding, though not as old as him. It’s mournful, though, and he drinks and wonders how her voice, so clear and happy earlier, got so husky with drink and sorrow, that it tugs at his heart.

                “Come, dearie,” he says, when she’s done, and tugs her to her feet. “Sing a happier song, and we’ll dance.” She smiles at that, giggly from the brandy, and obliges him, chanting a ballad when he takes her by the hand and waist. It’s fast and her voice stutters sometimes, when she has to sing and dance at the same time. She’s a good dancer, feet trained by masters to waltz and step prettily picking up the steps of a dance he thinks no one dances anymore. He’s not sure he remembers right, because he spent his dancing Midsummers drunk as Belle is now, but it doesn’t matter. She’s laughing and singing unevenly in his arms, the fire blazes, and he’s fairly drunk himself now.

                They end up sitting next to the fire once more, finishing the bottle. He runs a hand through Belle’s hair, bold in the flickering dark, with liquid courage—and oh, he needs it, having none of his own—burning in his veins.

                “I don’t have a haystack, dearie,” he says, and she laughs and leans against him.

                “I think I’m too sleepy for that part of tradition, anyway.” He nods, straightening her unruly hair again, and lets her fall asleep against his chest.

                He wakes up to sunlight bright on his face, a pile of ash and an empty brandy bottle before him. Belle still sleeps, the heavy sleep of one who’s fallen asleep drunk, her head on his chest and one hand wrapped in his hair.

                He stays still, despite the bright sunshine, and closes his eyes. He wants to fall asleep again, pretend he’s a farmer, or a spinner, not The Spinner, who’s gotten drunk on Midsummer and fallen asleep with a girl who’ll wake him with a kiss and laugh, not a face full of regret.

                Belle stirs eventually, squeaks, and struggles upright, groaning. He opens his eyes and tries a smile, expecting it to be slapped off his face.

                “Too much brandy?” he asks. She nods, pressing her fingers to her head, and doesn’t object when he scoops her up, carries her inside, and deposits her at the kitchen table with a cup of water.

                “Thanks,” she says, voice scratchy. “It was a nice night.”

                It was a nice night, he thinks. He ate and drank and danced, like any man on Midsummer night, and he has a new memory, a good one, to place next to those that have Bae making grass offerings, or he and Milah, before the war. Memories of innocence, and after long years of crushing the innocent between his palms, he’s glad that he has Belle here, to remind him that things can be _nice_ , or innocent.


End file.
